We had another one of our dream gigs last weekend. Think Bach meets Bluegrass! We were playing for the final concert in a series of fundraisers to restore Utah’s oldest pipe organ, housed at the First United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. At this final concert they were able to raise just enough money to ensure they would be able to proceed with the project. Discussing the history of the project with the church historian we were astounded at how effective their fund raising had been and moved by their passion. Against all odds they decided they were going to raise enough money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) to fix this beautiful instrument.

Incidentally the First United Methodist Church was instrumental in launching our own pipe dream. They provided us space in their sanctuary for our CD release party for our first CD “Hunter’s Moon” in 2010. The concert doubled as a fundraiser for the Crossroads Urban Center and we collected food and other goods to distribute to needy individuals. Later, the music director asked if we might consider having our children sing a number at one of their fundraisers for the organ, prior to that we hadn’t really thought of having our beautiful daughters become part of the act. We arranged “Morning has Broken” and debuted it in their beautiful sanctuary and the rest is history! It has been a thrill for us to be part of such a beautiful project! Especially for me as one of my father’s first jobs was working for the Aeolian Skinner Organ Company as a teenager. I grew up surrounded by the love of pipe organs and the in-repair parts of dozens of reed organs (their smaller cousins) which my father repaired in his spare time. The plans for the restored organ and the sanctuary it resides in is articulated on their crowdfunding page. I was particularly moved by this piece of the vision “Our vision is to welcome the community into an intimate, beautiful, flexible space for music and fellowship…We envision our sanctuary as a true community space where all can experience the power of music to draw us closer to each other...”The power of music to draw us closer to each other is what drives us as well. I want to offer a special thanks to our wonderful friends at First United Methodist Church for giving me the chance to do something I’ve always dreamed of! A banjo and pipe organ duet of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” accompanied by a choir of willing volunteers singing along! (wishing you'd been there now, aren't you!)Friends, pipe dreams are worth the trouble and if you want to have a hand in making sure the oldest organ in the three state area of Utah, Idaho, and Nevada keeps on singing you could do a little organ donation yourself! …and with some luck, that organ will still be bringing people closer together long after we’re all gone.